The surface of the world today has been tread on with digital footprints. The information we consume and output, and the networks of data we navigate leave their invisible mark on the world we traverse. Simultaneously, the density of urban areas and the upward growth of concrete physical landscapes have raised questions regarding the development of the metropolis. But in what ways do analog and digital crowding interact?

Ivan Toth Depe's recent project, Lapse, explores sculptures, murals, subways, and parks layered with augmented reality. After downloading the app on their phones, viewers can see physical spaces in Miami transform as the binaries that separate technology from our reality are broken down and morphed into a new landscape. This idea of heightened reality and the artistic and social layering of information is a question that is being explored through a variety of angles. Beau Lotto's app, Traces, allows users to attach digital photos, videos, and text to physical locations to share with friends. Keiichi Matsuda's hyper-reality film explores what the future of augmented reality might look like as we move toward an extreme saturation of content.

City skylines are changing, and the digital skyscrapers being constructed are rapidly altering our methods of navigation through space as well. The layering of stories on physical spaces and the tying of augmented content to locations raises interesting questions about the histories we make and the ways in which we will be able to experience them communally. If augmented reality is tailored to each individual, blocking or amplifying certain aspects of shared physical space could potentially lead to a factioned and disconnected world. Not only does this have the possibility to limit our capacity for empathy or community building, but it could also lead to problematic divisions being created. When reality, or what is to stand in for reality, can be curated, how do we communicate shared experiences?

Furthermore, when our identities and larger sense of nationhood are birthed from language, then what kinds of bonds are able to be formed without the common denominator of cultural experience? There's something particularly interesting about the ways in which physical space anchors us to history. When thinking of darker aspects of our identity or history, tangible environments force us to reckon with the past. Geography, architecture, and artifacts make it more difficult to deny the terms of our making. But in a digital world, if there is no anchor, then building layer after layer to cover up fragments without addressing the systemic root becomes possible. Layers of digital information, stories, and interactions that exist outside of the physical self or place might make objects transition into becoming nostalgic artifacts.

On the other hand however, there's a lot of possibility for space to be challenged and repurposed. There are opportunities to push up against systems of authority and mainstream voices of capital by subverting the physical spaces governed by them and placing new content in augmented reality. For example, the mass popularization of Pokemon GO led game players to discover a "LoveIsLove"pokemon in the Westboro Baptist Church. Could these forms of augmented dissent lead to tangible forms of action? At least at the advent of new kinds of location-based augmented reality experiences, there seem to be opportunities to destabilize traditional power structures, as these realms haven"™t been hierarchically structured or claimed.

In 2009 the New Museum in New York presented “It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq,” a commission by British Artist Jeremy Deller. I left the museum with quiet tears streaming down my face, deeply moved by the experience. Deller placed a living room setup in the middle of the floor and curated a group of veterans, journalists, scholars, and Iraqi nationals to have an unrestrained open dialogue with the visitors. I sat alone with Nour al-Khal, who worked as a translator in Basra and survived journalist Steven Vincent in 2005 when they were abducted, beaten, and shot by armed men.

No one knows for sure what will be the next great development in storytelling technology, but many are placing their bets on virtual reality. Since the Oculus Rift launched on Kickstarter in 2012, dozens of VR-related startups have emerged, creating everything from VR treadmills to documentaries.

Want to go to the Soho Apple Store? The Ralph Lauren and Dior stores? Sure you do. Like many streets in Manhattan, Greene Street has a long history—one that has changed with each quarter century. And Greene Street was not always the shopping mecca that it is today. As the interactive web documentary A Long History of a Short Block demonstrates, the street, like Manhattan itself, has played host to a wide range of infrastructure, communities, businesses, and people.

What if I told you that the “future” of storytelling the way people often think about it—Twitter and blogging and Internet-centricity—isn’t really the future at all? What if all of these “new” developments in storytelling are actually references to 100 years ago?

In November 2014, a scandal erupted around Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto after the media discovered that his enormous family mansion was actually owned by a construction company to which the government had recently awarded a multibillion-dollar contract. The mansion’s ownership raised suspicions of a quid pro quo agreement between Nieto and the construction company. In a country fraught with crime and violence, Nieto’s house—often referred to as the Casa Blanca—for many became a symbol of government corruption.

Back in 2008, Colin Northway designed a flash game that was wildly addictive called Fantastic Contraption. With the simple goal of delivering a red orb from one side of the map to the other, players used different moving or static parts to construct their delivery device. It was the simplicity that inspired seemingly infinite solutions to each challenge—real feats of engineering and armchair ingenuity, like elaborate cranes and slingshots.

In the Eyes of the Animal, created by Marshmallow Laser Feast, is a new virtual-reality experience that lets viewers see and explore nature as animals do. Created using a combination of 360-degree aerial filming, photogrammetry, and CT scans—along with a binaural soundtrack using audio recordings sourced from the surrounding woodland—the video offers a unique perspective of England’s Grizedale Forest and its local animal and insect inhabitants.

Eli Horowitz is a writer, designer, editor, and previous publisher of McSweeney’s. His digital novel, The Silent History, won the Webby Awards in 2012, and his most recent project, The Pickle Index, was showcased at this this year’s FoST summit in the Story Arcade. The novel, set in a society where all citizens must participate in a pickle-centric recipe exchange, exists in three simultaneous stand-alone editions: an app, an interactive hardcover set, and a paperback published by FSG.